


the fight inside is breaking me again

by alinaandalion



Category: Leverage
Genre: Angst, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-29
Updated: 2012-04-29
Packaged: 2017-11-04 12:21:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alinaandalion/pseuds/alinaandalion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post- Season Four.  Nate visits the cemetery and reflects back on his father's legacy and how it still directs his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the fight inside is breaking me again

Nate doesn’t really want to be here.  It’s not a very pleasant day, cold and drizzly, but he’s leaving Boston for good in a few days, and there are some things he can’t quite shake.  At least the team has left him alone for this, sensing that he needs to do this by himself.  
  
He stands in front of two headstones; water drips down the collar of his coat, and he shivers a little.  He doesn’t want to think about the remains of Jimmy Ford that had been pulled out of that warehouse, taken to the morgue, not released for weeks until the investigation of the explosion was concluded.  He’s never liked his father all that much, but even at his worst moments, Nate never considered the idea that his dad would end up like this.  
  
He can still taste the acrid smell of the smoke in the back of his mouth, feel the skid of the pavement against his back, the heat from the explosion.  He still feels at times that his world is tilted sideways, and he’s just moving through murky water, only occasionally breaking through to catch a breath.  He knows Sophie worries about him, knows from the way her hand lingers against his shoulder, the way she wraps her body around him at night.  He has a feeling she’s kept the others away from him recently, and he can’t find it in himself to care about that.  
  
People always place so much importance on goodbyes, closure, and he doesn’t get it.  Getting a chance to hear Jimmy Ford’s last words hasn’t made this any easier; he feels most of the time that no matter what his father said, it can’t make up for the hell that was Nate’s life when he was growing up, the legacy he fought so hard against.  And, here he is, a thief.  
  
 _“Tell them how much Jimmy Ford loved his son.”_  
  
He doesn’t even know who to tell.  Sam is gone; he never even got to know his grandfather because Jimmy was in jail almost the entirety of Sam’s too short life.  He knows he’s more like his father than he wants to be, and even telling himself they aren’t the same isn’t a big help.  
  
He can still remember standing on the edge of that dam with a gun pointed at Latimer and Dubenich and thinking about the heavy weight, the ease of pulling a trigger.  Jimmy Ford wouldn’t have hesitated; and, in the end, Nate knows he might as well have outright killed them.  He knew what would happen when he put that gun on the edge and walked away.  
  
Choices are everything, and it seems that he keeps making the ones he thinks his father would approve of even though it makes him sick in the part of his conscience that still wants to do the right thing.  He doesn’t want this shadow hanging over him, the specter of his father that has haunted him for as long as he can remember.  
  
But he doesn’t know how to make it go away.  
  
He sighs and looks back at the headstone, touches the cold marble.  “Goodbye, Dad.”  
  
He feels like there should be more to say, but there just isn’t.


End file.
